wife wants a TV and I don't

[niget2002]

SO we're getting a TV...

Nothing fancy. I just picked up a cheap 32" TCL with Roku off of Amazon and an RV TV mount that will lock when stowed. The TV has a jack for OTA and the travel trailer came with an antenna on the roof. I have a small single-board computer that I'm going to put Plex on so we can take some movies with us. Not sure if this will be needed. I may try to just put some movies on a thumb drive and see if the TV can play them straight off the USB.

I have a small travel router I use in hotels that we can use to have a local wifi for the TV and Plex to talk to each other. It won't have internet, but I've heard it should still work.

The parts should be in today, so I'll be installing them on Saturday.

 

[Alaskansnowbirds]

If the TV has Roku built in then yes it will play movies off a thumb drive. The Roku has a media player "channel".

 

[jadebox]

I think you made a good choice. Okay, two good choices ... listening to the wife and getting a TCL Roku TV. The TCL TVs are inexpensive and fairly decent. The Samsung in our living room has a better picture than the TCL in our bedroom, but the Samsung cost ten times as much.

Roku has a Plex app, err channel, but the pre-installed Roku Media Player will work fine for playing videos from the Plex server or USB. If you have an internet connection, there are many "channels" with free content. The Roku channel and Pluto TV are two of my favorites.

With most Roku TVs, you can also pause and resume live TV which is a nice feature.

The remote that comes with Roku TVs is okay, but you can purchase the Voice remote which looks pretty much the same but has some advantages. The best feature of it is that it uses RF instead of IR to talk to the TV. So, it doesn't have to be pointed at the TV. Also, the enhanced remotes have a headphone jack and the "Voice" button allowing you to search for content and control the TV with voice commands.

 

[niget2002]

We have 4 other Rokus in the house, so I'm familiar with them from an 'app' point of view. I've just never tried to play any of my movies through the thumbdrive. I know some of the movies on my Plex had to be re-encoded to play well through the Rokus onto the TVs. I'm never 100% if the encoding conflicts are Plex related or Roku related. I have a handbrake profile that I know works, so anytime a movie fails to play, I just re-encode it and replace the file on the plex server. Occasionally I still find a movie that plays fine on one TV, but not on another. Probably a Roku4 vs Roku3 thing, but I'm too lazy to spend that much effort on it

I typically don't use the Roku remotes. I have either Harmony One, or sofabaton remotes in all the rooms. The kid's Roku TV in their playroom is the only one still using the stock Roku remote.

Does the voice commands on the remote still work if the Roku doesn't have internet access?

 

[jadebox]

I think you made a good choice. Okay, two good choices ... listening to the wife and getting a TCL Roku TV. The TCL TVs are inexpensive and fairly decent. The Samsung in our living room has a better picture than the TCL in our bedroom, but the Samsung cost ten times as much.

Roku has a Plex app, err channel, but the pre-installed Roku Media Player will work fine for playing videos from the Plex server or USB. If you have an internet connection, there are many "channels" with free content. The Roku channel and Pluto TV are two of my favorites.

With most Roku TVs, you can also pause and resume live TV which is a nice feature.

The remote that comes with Roku TVs is okay, but you can purchase the Voice remote which looks pretty much the same but has some advantages. The best feature of it is that it uses RF instead of IR to talk to the TV. So, it doesn't have to be pointed at the TV. Also, the enhanced remotes have a headphone jack and the "Voice" button allowing you to search for content and control the TV with voice commands.

Does the voice commands on the remote still work if the Roku doesn't have internet access?

Good catch. I am sure it wouldn't. But I still think the other advantages of the Voice remote make it a better choice.

 

[Isaac-1]

I would suggest connecting it to the internet from time to time to allow the Roku software to get updates

 

[DutchmenSport]

Happy wife, Happy life! Good choice! Good choice for the Roku too.

Once you start using that Roku, it will blow you away! Click on "Add Channels" and there are a bunch of "free" stations. And then, there are some paid channels.

On our we have Netflex and VUDU, Disney, and Paramount+ and Apple TV, but not paying for it.

My son has a hulu that we share (it's paid)

Filmrise (True Crime), Filmrise (normal), Filmrise (Classic TV) are all free.

Then there is TLC go, Pluto, Red Box (some free some paid), Fawesome, Sensical, Local TV, Plex, and a whole bunch more ... all free.

You will loose your mind there is SOOOOO much to watch! Stuff you'd never even heard of before. It's awesome!

 

[niget2002]

I would suggest connecting it to the internet from time to time to allow the Roku software to get updates

Yeah. I'll attach the travel router to the house AP before each trip or so and let everything update. I usually do a walk through the week before a trip to make sure everything is still ready.

I do IT related stuff for a living and tend to patch/update stuff on a regular basis.

 

[niget2002]

Happy wife, Happy life! Good choice! Good choice for the Roku too.

Once you start using that Roku, it will blow you away! Click on "Add Channels" and there are a bunch of "free" stations. And then, there are some paid channels.

On our we have Netflex and VUDU, Disney, and Paramount+ and Apple TV, but not paying for it.

My son has a hulu that we share (it's paid)

Filmrise (True Crime), Filmrise (normal), Filmrise (Classic TV) are all free.

Then there is TLC go, Pluto, Red Box (some free some paid), Fawesome, Sensical, Local TV, Plex, and a whole bunch more ... all free.

You will loose your mind there is SOOOOO much to watch! Stuff you'd never even heard of before. It's awesome!

Our Roku account has Spotify, Plex, Amazon Prime, Netflix, YoutubeTV, Disney+, and Hulu (not plus).

 

[niget2002]

TV... Installed.